1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a user interface in an information processing device, and more specifically to a system and method of supporting the operations of the user involved in electronic technology.
2. Description of the Related Art
As being widely used with multimedia, etc., the advanced information processing and communications technology has been introduced to a wider range of our society, and ordinary users have more opportunities to operate information processing terminal units.
Many work stations and personal computers are operated with multiple windows and the user proceeds with his or her work by selecting desired items from a large menu, for example, a character conversion menu for displaying a plurality of Kanji characters (Japanese-style Chinese characters), as candidates in word processing operations. In such electronic operations, a more easily operated user interface between information processing devices and the users is demanded.
A user interface for an information processing terminal unit displays on the screen, etc. a menu of a plurality of selection items to be selected by a user. If the user selects; one of the items, the interface automatically instructs the processor, etc. to perform a process for the selection item. To more easily perform the selected operations, the order of selection items may be automatically modified and displayed.
The conventional methods of improving the efficiency of the operations by automatically modifying and displaying the selection items are classified into the following three groups for modification, and two groups for display. The conventional technology is realized by optionally combining the modification and display groups.
Modification method
(a) A selection history indicating the last selected item is recorded, and items are sequentially selected according to the history. PA1 (b) Items are selected according to an entry system, and the order of the selection items is determined based on the selection history. PA1 (c) In addition to the order based on the selection history, the time at which each item was selected is stored. If an item is not selected within a predetermined time, the item is deleted. PA1 (d) Selection items are displayed in one direction. PA1 (e) Selection items are displayed in group units. The item groups can be displayed either sequentially or selectively.
Display method
Most of the prior art can be represented by a combination of any of the modification methods (a) and display methods (b). That is, a plurality of selection items are displayed in one direction according to the latest selection of the user.
However, the following problems exist in the conventional automatic modification and display methods. Since the function object "menu" and the learning device for learning the selection history are incorporated into one unit, it is difficult to adjust and modify the display method and learning device.
Since the learning function is not completely independent, it is difficult for a single learning device to provide learning functions for different units requiring the same learning capabilities.
Furthermore, since the entire learning result directly corresponds to the representation of the function, that is, incorporated into the program code, the method is poor in flexibility and produces waste when functions of different restrictions are displayed in the display step.
Additionally, since the operations are considerably limited to configure the selecting operation support system, the system is rather closed and limited, and can hardly meet the demand for a flexible support system.
It is very difficult to separate the contents of the operations from the function or the operations from the learning device. Therefore, when a plurality of different operations are performed, the user should prepare different systems having a learning function for each operation.